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The Intel Extreme Masters are coming back to gamescom (held in Cologne, Germany from August 15th to 19th ) to kick off season 7 and introduce some major changes to its tournament mode!
The European qualification for the StarCraft II tournament will start at the 12th of July. In addition to the online qualification there will also be an 32 player open bracket at the event which will give 8 players the chance to qualify for the main tournament.
The Open Bracket
Every StarCraft II tournament in the new season of the Intel Extreme Masters will feature 24 players. 16 of those will qualify online and 8 will qualify through an open bracket tournament played on the first day of gamescom.
How can I participate in the Open Bracket?
There will be 32 spots in the open bracket. The open bracket is reserved for players that were unable to participate in the event qualifier or got knocked out early. 16 spots will be available for booking for known SC2 professionals.
The other 16 spots will be distributed between players that sign up in person one day before the event on a first come - first serve basis. This is aimed to make sure both top pros and aspiring local players still have a chance to compete in the main event.
Open bracket spots will be made available after the conclusion of the Intel Extreme Masters online qualifiers so that players that have not qualified online could still compete at the event. Further details about the open bracket will be released at a later stage.
How will it be played out?
The open bracket tournament will be divided into 4 double elimination brackets of 8 players each. The winners of the upper bracket and the lower bracket will be seeded into the main event with a high and low seed, respectively. The double elimination bracket finals will not be played out.
How do the open bracket players fit into the main event?
The main event will have 24 players with 4 groups of 6 players. It will start only after the open bracket has concluded and the 8 main event participants from the open bracket are known.
Each group will consist of 4 players qualified online, 1 high seed open bracket player and 1 low seed open bracket player (from a different open bracket).
A total of 12 players, top 3 from each group, will advance to the playoffs, with group winners getting a free win in the 1st round. It is the same system as the one used at the Intel Extreme Masters World Championship.
Online Qualification
16 of the 24 tournament players will come from the online qualification in America, Asia and Europe. The dates for America and Asia are still to be announced. For Europe they will take place on the following dates:- Stage 1 - 12th of July 2012
- Stage 2 - 17th of July 2012
- Stage 3 - 19th of July 2012
We prepared two infographics that show how the overall qualification and the European qualification in detail are structured.
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Nice, i was wondering what is happening to the IEM and now i have my answer!
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United States33472 Posts
Four from America? I spit on your pity, Europe.
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well there could be anohter 8 americans if they come through the open bracket
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On June 30 2012 01:54 Waxangel wrote:
Four from America? I spit on your pity, Europe.
I'm sure the Swedes and Germans are quaking at the prospect of having angered IdrA and inControl, who shall take their bloody revenge.
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On June 30 2012 01:57 GuitarBizarre wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2012 01:54 Waxangel wrote:
Four from America? I spit on your pity, Europe. I'm sure the Swedes and Germans are quaking at the prospect of having angered IdrA and inControl, who shall take their bloody revenge.
Your sarcasm is win!
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I like this format.
Not stacked with koreans, but still the 2 best can qualify and potentially take the tournament.
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Surely koreans deserve more spots then the entire continent of America? ._.
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On June 30 2012 02:04 Dinsdale wrote:
Surely koreans deserve more spots then the entire continent of America? ._.
they will have more spots from America anyway
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To those complaining about spots: At the other IEM events there will probably (like last year) be more spots for America or Asia depending on where the IEM events takes place. Forexample last year at IEM New York there were a lot more spots for Americans. So dont worry, I think you will get your spots! 
Besides that, I really like the new format, its better than the one from last years IEM events.
Question: Can we expect to see something like the FFA's we saw at Sao Paolo and World Championships last year?
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Interesting tournament set-up. Not particularly intuitive, but it's not at all difficult to figure out.
So the #1 seed in each group gets a bye, and the #2 seed gets the advantage of getting to compete against a #3 seed in Round 1. Moreover, judging by the Season VI World Championship brackets, the #2 seed and the #1 seed in any given group can't knock the other out unless they're in the Grand Finals. That's a beautifully-structured tournament.
My primary concern is+ Show Spoiler + that Korea only has Two qualifying slots, despite being the clear hegemon as far as SC2. I get that it's a European tournament and that they can compete in the open bracket at their own expense, but Europe gets 8 seeds, and NA gets 4 seeds. America. Four. Even if Stephano *were* American, could we even find 3 other people from the States that take a game off Symbol or Mvp (or whomever you think the best two Korean players are at the moment, Symbol only gets points for momentum) in a Best of Three? Europe is leagues ahead of NA as far as quality, but finding 8 players that are better than Korea's two best is a Sisyphian task. Roll that boulder up the hill all you like, it's never going to happen.
Of course, production generally draws more than the quality of players, and IEM on the whole delivers in that regard. So, despite me devoting a large amount of text to a very small concern, I am indeed looking forward to it.
GL;HF guys :D
EDIT: Oh, people have already taken care of the 'spots' concern. I'm just going to spoiler that, no need to clutter the thread up with redundancy.
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On June 30 2012 02:06 Lennient wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2012 02:04 Dinsdale wrote:
Surely koreans deserve more spots then the entire continent of America? ._. they will have more spots from America anyway
I bet that koreans will go into american qualifiers or somethng and take those 4 spots anyway. Perhabs sheth will get 1, but if koreans can participate on NA qualifiers they will get most spots anyway lol
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why does it say america and not NA?
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sleep, golden, illusion and violet (?) from na probably.
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On June 30 2012 02:26 sc14s wrote:
why does it say america and not NA?
Well, you might notice that NA stands for North America, which means that America applies to everyone here. People outside of the US often refer to NA as America.
On June 30 2012 01:54 Waxangel wrote:
Four from America? I spit on your pity, Europe.
Exactly what Wax said.
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Great to hear from IEM again, it's been a while. Can't wait!
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Love the new format, a nice mix of everything, but keep a stronghold on EU talent.
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Nice! Great new format which is awesome ^^
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looks like a great tourney with a unique korean/rest of world ratio, glad to see hasuobs already locked in for this one :D
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/UDNgK.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/LXa8U.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Q3vHT.jpg)
